anniel

We are going on a cruise into the Med and one of the stops will be a days visit to Port Said.

There are many excursions to Cairo, the Pyramids and other great sites. They are all about 12 hours long!

We will be on the P&O ship Oriana. I am wondering whether anyone has been to Egypt recently, given the US and British involvement in the Middle East.

My husband is vowing not to get off the ship, but I am tempted as we may never go there again. The literature on the visit to port said says that all tours in Egypt have a heavy police escort. I do not know if this makes me feel safer or not!

Any comments would be appreciated.

Louise

There has been a lot of talk about this recently on the Africa and Middle East forum. Go there and type in "safety" under "search this forum" then pick Egypt. I just returned from an April trip and felt more safe there than a lot of other countries I have visited. We always had a policeman with us and sometimes an additional car escort. Does kind of make you feel like you have a bullseye painted on your back. But, it is my understanding they do this for all tourists.

curiousx

We went to Egypt midway between the Cairo Museum bombing of a busload of German tourists and the Luxor massacre. Security was very intense, particularly in the south, and i am sure is heightened now.

Our tour group went all over the country. Our family often left the tour hotel to do exploring on our own around Cairo, Luxor, Aswan etc. After the tour, we took a family train trop to Alexandria. The general populace was very helpful and welcoming - and very grateful to see tourists as the bottom had fallen out of the industry at the time. They could not do enough for us, in fact.

Egypt is a don't miss experience and I would go back in a minute. The risk of being involved in an incident is probably a lot lower than your chance of ever returning to Egypt...so get off the ship and enjoy!

narob

We were there on the Silversea Shadow last year during the war. We flew into Cairo and had a free land package with the cruise company, that included two nights at the Four Seasons in Cairo and one night at the Sonesta in Luxor and all touring with Egyptologists in both places. We never felt safer. We were asked about the war and just answered, that we hoped it was over soon and we are on vacation, so we don't discuss politics.It was probably, the greatest cruise and land tour, we ever took and at almost 70% off, because of the war. Get off the boat!!!! Even Port Said was fun, bartering on the dock was great.

maryann

We are going in 2005 on the QE11 and can't wait. The ship is in port for 36 hrs. and I want to see as much as I can.

Hopefully, world events will cooperate. It's no.1 on our 'must see before...' list !

Let us know how it was.